The animal on the cover of Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is a bluebird (genus Sialia, family Turdidae). Although they are predominantly blue in color, bluebirds can have vivid shades of red dispersed throughout their plumage. Unlike other species of birds, no discernible difference exists in the color patterns of male and female bluebirds.
The birds are territorial by nature and favor open grasslands with scattered trees. Males will identify nest sites among the trees and will try to attract prospective mates by singing, flapping their wings, and then depositing some material within the cavities of those trees. If a female accepts the male’s entreaties and one of the nesting sites, she alone will build the nest for the home.
Bluebirds are unique to North America, and bird lovers often attract them to their backyards with feeders full of darkling beetles and mealworms. Bluebirds are also fond of eating raisins soaked in water and bathing in heated birdbaths.
The bird is popularly thought of as a symbol of optimism, although occasionally this symbolism goes into shadowier terrain.
Some dream interpreters say the image of a dead bluebird represents disillusionment, a loss of innocence, and a transition from a younger, more naïve self to a wiser one, while the image of a live bluebird represents spiritual joy and contentedness, or a longing for such a state. Judy Garland’s character Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz perhaps exemplifies this longing when she sings about happy little bluebirds in the song “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”
The cover image is from Johnson’s Natural History. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont’s TheSansMonoCondensed.